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This article highlights the main achievement of the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS): the establishment of the foundations for a new normative and operational consensus on the role of military intervention for humanitarian purposes. Most significantly, the report moves beyond the political debates and conceptual histories surrounding the polarized notions of military intervention and state sovereignty, and introduces the concept of the `responsibility to protect' to bridge the polemical-political divide. This concept encapsulates the growing necessity for the norm of non-intervention to yield to the principle of international responsibility to protect foreign populations under threat of mass killings and ethnic cleansing, where these populations' governments are either complicit or ineffectual. The ideas contained in the report are based on a spectrum of philosophical principles relevant to different actors, from the more general principles of the responsibility to prevent conflict and to rebuild peace, to the more specific threshold criteria and cautionary principles - right authority and due process - to ensure the ethical legitimacy of intervention on the basis of the responsibility to protect. The article concludes with some reflections on the role of the UN and leading powers in the implementation of this framework, and the usefulness of the precautionary principle to avoid irreversible humanitarian atrocities.

In light of the post-intervention crisis in Libya, this article revisits critically the vision of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) offered in the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) – frequently taken as the conceptual bedrock for R2P doctrine. It is argued that the perverse effect of ICISS doctrine is to replace political responsibility with paternalism. The demand that states be made accountable to the international community ends by making states accountable for their people rather than to their people. The argument is developed across five critical theses. These include claims that R2P changes the burden of justification for intervention, that it usurps popular sovereignty in favour of state power, and that it diffuses post-conflict responsibilities. The article concludes that pre-emptive 'human protection' efforts risk crowding out questions of systemic transformation, i.e. what kind of an international order we want to live in.

Background: Infantile spasms constitutes a severe infantile epilepsy syndrome that is difficult to treat and has a high morbidity. Hormonal therapies or vigabatrin are the most commonly used treatments. We aimed to assess whether combining the treatments would be more effective than hormonal therapy alone. Methods: In this multicentre, open-label randomised trial, 102 hospitals (Australia [three], Germany [11], New Zealand [two], Switzerland [three], and the UK [83]) enrolled infants who had a clinical diagnosis of infantile spasms and a hypsarrhythmic (or similar) EEG no more than 7 days before enrolment. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1) by a secure website to receive hormonal therapy with vigabatrin or hormonal therapy alone. If parents consented, there was an additional randomisation (1:1) of type of hormonal therapy used (prednisolone or tetracosactide depot). Block randomisation was stratified for hormonal treatment and risk of developmental impairment. Parents and clinicians were not masked to therapy, but investigators assessing electro-clinical outcome were masked to treatment allocation. Minimum doses were prednisolone 10 mg four times a day or intramuscular tetracosactide depot 0·5 mg (40 IU) on alternate days with or without vigabatrin 100 mg/kg per day. The primary outcome was cessation of spasms, which was defined as no witnessed spasms on and between day 14 and day 42 from trial entry, as recorded by parents and carers in a seizure diary. Analysis was by intention to treat. The trial is registered with The International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN), number 54363174, and the European Union Drug Regulating Authorities Clinical Trials (EUDRACT), number 2006-000788-27. Findings: Between March 7, 2007, and May 22, 2014, 766 infants were screened and, of those, 377 were randomly assigned to hormonal therapy with vigabatrin (186) or hormonal therapy alone (191). All 377 infants were assessed for the primary outcome. Between days 14 and 42 inclusive no spasms were witnessed in 133 (72%) of 186 patients on hormonal therapy with vigabatrin compared with 108 (57%) of 191 patients on hormonal therapy alone (difference 15·0%, 95% CI 5·1–24·9, p=0·002). Serious adverse reactions necessitating hospitalisation occurred in 33 infants (16 on hormonal therapy alone and 17 on hormonal therapy with vigabatrin). The most common serious adverse reaction was infection occurring in five infants on hormonal therapy alone and four on hormonal therapy with vigabatrin. There were no deaths attributable to treatment. Interpretation: Hormonal therapy with vigabatrin is significantly more effective at stopping infantile spasms than hormonal therapy alone. The 4 week period of spasm cessation required to achieve a primary clinical response to treatment suggests that the effect seen might be sustained, but this needs to be confirmed at the 18 month follow-up. Funding: The Castang Foundation, Bath Unit for Research in Paediatrics, National Institute of Health Research, the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust, the BRONNER-BENDUNG Stifung/Gernsbach, and University Children's Hospital Zurich.

Die Autorin untersucht den bestehenden Rahmen des positiven Völkervertragsrechts und sucht nach Möglichkeiten, wie innerhalb der institutionalisierten rechtlichen Bestimmungen die Fragen, die die "Just War Theory" aufwirft, beantwortet werden können. Nach grundsätzlichen Überlegungen zum Wandel des Souveränitätsbegriffs und einer Differenzierung unterschiedlicher Typen militärischer Zwangsmaßnahmen analysiert sie den Bericht "Responsibility to Protect" der "International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty" (ICISS) von 2001. Ziel der Kommission war es, Kriterien und Verfahren zu entwickeln, unter welchen Umständen die internationale Gemeinschaft in die Souveränität einzelner Staaten - im Extremfall auch mit militärischen Zwangsmaßnahmen - eingreifen darf bzw. muss. Die ICISS legte in Form ihres Berichts dazu einen Vorschlag vor, wobei jedoch die erarbeiteten Kriterien und Verfahren im Wesentlichen dem "Just War"-Diskurs entstammen, wie die Autorin näher zeigt. Sie unterbreitet ferner einen eigenen Vorschlag, wie dem von ihr konstatierten Defizit des Durchführungsverfahrens insbesondere bei einer Blockade des Sicherheitsrates abgeholfen werden kann. (ICI)

Assesses the report of the International Commission on Intervention & State Sovereignty (ICISS), which was formed in Canada in Sept 2000 for the purpose of promoting a debate about humanitarian intervention; developing a political consensus on the conflict between intervention & state sovereignty; & putting that consensus into action. ICISS principles & priorities are summarized to maintain that its most important contributions to the debate are the conceptual shift from a "right of intervention" to "a responsibility to protect"; & formulation of a range of action for the international community in regard to prevention, non-military coercion, military action, & post-conflict rebuilding. Challenges involved in implementing the ICISS recommendations are explored, including difficulties the "responsibility to protect" presents for policy makers. Operational dimensions & the impact of the events of September 11 (2001) on the Commission's findings are discussed. It is concluded that the report succeeds in its goal to promote a comprehensive debate but underestimates the "countervailing political forces" that could hamper reaching a consensus or carrying out its suggestions. J. Lindroth

Intro -- Foreword -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- About the Author -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- References -- Chapter 2 The Responsibility to Protect: The History of a Growing Norm -- Centuries of Impunity -- ICISS: A New Understanding of Sovereignty -- Just Cause -- Right Intention -- Proportional Means -- Last Resort -- Reasonable Prospects -- Right Authority -- The Reaction -- R2P: A New Understanding of Security -- The Content of R2P -- The Responsibility to Prevent -- The Responsibility to React -- The Responsibility to Rebuild -- The Adoption of R2P -- The Scope and Enforcement -- References -- Chapter 3 Theory and Methods -- Role of Constructivism in Formulating an Alternative Explanation -- The Constructivist Challenge -- Ideas and Material Capabilities -- Collective Meanings and Identities -- Norms, Shared Values, and the Use of Force -- Between the Logic of Appropriateness and the Logic of Consequences -- The Agent-Structure Problem -- Norms and Strategic Behavior -- Method and Sources -- Methods -- Operationalizing R2P -- The Responsibility to Prevent (ICISS 2001, 24-29, 31) -- The Responsibility to React (ICISS 2001, 30-33) -- The Responsibility to Rebuild (ICISS 2001, 39-43) -- Sources -- References -- Chapter 4 US Foreign Policy in the Context of Humanitarian Intervention -- Rwanda -- Kosovo -- Afghanistan -- Iraq -- Darfur -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 5 Historical Context of US-Libyan Relations (Prior to 2011) -- The Period Before the Second World War -- The Cold War Period -- Between 1951 and 1969 -- Qaddafi and the New Revolutionary Ideology -- US Foreign Policy Toward Libya Under Qaddafi -- From 1969 to 1976 -- The Carter Administration (1977-1981) -- The Reagan Administration (1981-1989) -- The Period Between the End of the Cold War and the 9/11 Attacks -- The First Bush Administration (1989-1993).